The MECCA beauty loop community is the more than a reward program that provides its loyal customers with product samples, Kate Blythe, CMO of the Australian beauty brand, called it “a place for discovery and education.”
Speaking to Mediaweek at ADMA 2025, Blythe proudly called the Beauty Loop community a powerful network of friends who share ratings, reviews and advice on products.
“They are part of Mecca and are genuinely like team members. I think it goes beyond a loyalty program where you’re getting something for it.”
Blythe was joined on the ADMA stage with MECCA’s Head of Digital Marketing Hannah Fillis to talk about the brand’s successes with brand activations, from G’Day Glossier and Australian Open pop-up store, and business growth over the years.
Blythe said she hoped attendees saw how she and her team go beyond selling product or brand.
“It is about customer connection, experience and inspiration and genuinely having that heart connection with our customers.”
She shared that they work very hard with the brands sold at Mecca on upcoming launches or products that they believe the Beauty Loop community would love to learn about.
“It’s also not just about random things. It should be about a routine that you can take from it. We’ve tried doing a choose-your-own-adventure box as well and occasionally we’ll try something like a mystery box to drive a bit of excitement, so it doesn’t ever get stale.”
“I think it’s a powerful program, but I think we’re always very aware of keeping it fresh and keeping it interesting for our customers.”
Hannah Fillis and Kate Blythe
Balancing instinct and data to power customer connection
When it comes to connecting with their community in engaging and authentic ways, Blythe highlighted instinct as a key part of having a balance of data-driven insights, human creativity and showing up for customers in a personalised way.
“We try and get the balance right because the business predominantly was built on a lot of instinct. We don’t want to move away from that, but we also have to have robust data and insights to inform the next moves.
Blythe cited Jo Horgan, founder of MECCA, as someone who leads with instinct and who enisioned the space for transformation in the Australian beauty landscape.
“Creativity is at the heart of everything that we do, it sits at the centre of the whole business. This instinctive and emotional approach to how we think about what we do for the customer is at the core.
“Then your data and your insights can power those decisions and kind of back those decisions up, and then we measure relentlessly.”
The beauty brand also taps into MECCA Chit Chat, the Facebook channel the brand launched for its customers. Made up of nearly 245,000 members, Blythe called it “a source of education”.
“In the keynote we talked about it as a listening tool, because we can actually glean incredible insights from it, which can propel our thinking forward as well of what’s working and what’s not working as well.
“If there is a product that they’ve got that they don’t think is great, we can listen to that and think about how we can evolve the program going forward.
“But they don’t just talk about Beauty Loop. They talk about everything, store experiences and emotional, personal stories like a mother going in with her daughter who’s never been able to wear makeup because she’s had bad skin, and had a tutorial, and it’s given her confidence.
“It gives us this real connection to what the customers are feeling when they go into a Mecca store and have that experience as well.”
Blythe shared that while Mecca set up the group for the customers, they don’t do much to nurture or encourage the community but rather leave it up to the members to have conversations.
“We occasionally post on about an event happening or a new brand, but we don’t get involved per se because I think it’s really important for the community to feel like it’s theirs.”
Kate Blythe
Keeping up with the shifting landscape
Blythe said that as personalised AI-recommendations continue to evolve, the Beauty Loop box has the potential to provide its members with customised selections rather than a random assortment of items.
However, she noted that MECCA still encourages the real-life experience of going in-store to a local store and getting a box.
“The AI component will power some of the thinking, the personalisation and the way that we think about what that program could be. I think that’s where the excitement will come.”
In terms of the changing consumer behaviour, Blythe said the biggest consumer shift has been the rise of beauty content on social channels such as TikTok and Instagram.
“Our customers are educating themselves and becoming true beauty experts. Once upon a time you would have opened a magazine and followed what Vogue says in terms of these three products you should buy.
“These days our customers are finding creators that they like to follow, influencers that they think are interesting, and getting a different level of experience and education, which is fuelling their appetite for beauty. Once upon a time to have a skin routine, you would have gone into a Mecca store and had a consultation.
“We found customers are now coming in with these are three products they want to buy that they’ve seen them on TikTok. We’ve had to shift how we behave in terms of responding to that.
“The team are really across what’s trending on TikTok and social channels, and also then to help customers and guide them to what is actually right for them rather than just what they’ve seen.”
MECCA’s social strategy has also incorporated their store hosts who share their knowledge on products in an approachable way.
“We invest in education for our store hosts, that they really can become skin specialists, makeup specialists, fragrance experts. By putting them on the channels where our customers are, that means they get that connection directly.
“It’s exciting to see how those channels are evolving and putting our store hosts at the heart of where the customer goes is something that we are excited about.”
Generosity and magic at the heart of MECCA’s holiday plans
Looking ahead to Mecca’s strategy for the festive season, Blythe said it is the biggest time for the brand, and they intend to go “bigger, better, bolder and braver” than before.
As with past years, Mecca has teamed up with a yet-to-be announced artist on the holiday campaign and packaging.
“It’s a really beautiful campaign that’s going to be everywhere and the extra piece across that is we will be really thinking about the storytelling and bringing that story to life in physical stores as well as the digital and social channels.
“We really want to deliver generosity. We want customers to feel the magic, but also to find products.”